Phillip R. Westmoreland

Phil Westmoreland is a professor at North CarolinaState University in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His research focuses on reaction kinetics and engineering, obtained from experiments, computational chemistry and reactor modeling. His Chemical Engineering degrees are fromN.C. State (BS73), LSU (MS74) and MIT (PhD86). From 1986-2009, Phil was at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and in 2006-2009 he served as a Program Director at NSF.
He was 2013 AIChE President; is a Trustee and past president of the educational nonprofit CACHE Corporation; and was founding Chair of AIChE’s Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum. He is a Fellow of AIChE.
His awards include AIChE's Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology, ASEE's Corcoran Award, the NSF Director’s Award for Collaborative Integration and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's David Shirley Award.

Initially, I supported specialty solvent production. In that role, I spent 30-40% of my time on technical assistance, i.e., troubleshooting operational instabilities and executing reliability projects. However, the majority of my time was spent developing long-term improvement projects to increase production or decrease cost. Recently, I've been reassigned to acetic anhydride production, still in a process-improvement role and spending almost all of my time on medium-to-long-term improvement projects. My degree supplied me with the tools I needed to learn engineering "on the job." There have been so many learning opportunities in my job that I struggle to pull out the key components. What has probably proved most useful in my job is a better understanding of practical separation methods. I have been fortunate enough to retain experience with complicated solvent chemistry involving liquid-liquid equilibriums and numerous azeotropes as well as extractive and reactive distillation. I've also had the pleasure of working with decanters, centrifuges, reactors of all sorts, high-pressure pumps, and various types of vacuum systems (just to name a few!). Troubleshooting opportunities and internal inspections on columns have taught me many of the intricacies regarding distillation in practice. Because most of my experience is with solvent production, I have found a better understanding of distillation to be the most use to me.

As both a fairly new chemical engineer (<10yrs experience) and a mentor of recent college engineering graduates, there are a few gaps between what is taught in college and what is required as a chemical engineer supporting a manufacturing facility. One of the biggest issues that my mentee expressed, and that I experienced as well, was a lack of practical knowledge about equipment design. For example, what is the difference between a globe valve and a ball valve? Why would you use one versus the other? The same can be said about instrumentation, pumps, distillation columns and heat exchangers. There are numerous subtle design choices that can significantly affect the safety, operability, reliability, and cost of a project that often require the guidance of a senior engineer as the new hire completes their first project. The area that my mentee and I supported has process shutdowns to clean a distillation column. For a new hire, shutdowns are great learning experience. They allow an inside look at equipment whose functioning can be hard to comprehend. Explaining how a multi-pass shell and tube heat exchanger works is easier when you can look at both the tube sheet and the bonnet, and see how the fluid passes through one section of tubes to the next. It also allows for opportunities to ask (or answer if you have an inquisitive mentee) questions like "Which process should go on the tube side, and why?" Being able to see and touch a piece of equipment provides a tangible learning experience that is able to reinforce the theory learned in school.

Beyond learning new technical skills
Josh also offered his thoughts about the need to develop good communication skills. Despite the many presentation and writing opportunities in school, these skills have to be augmented with greater understanding of people and how to provide the information they need. Josh said:Another area where I see new engineers struggle is communication. I have heard too many stories from operators about new engineers who tried to tell them how they should operate a piece of equipment. During graduation, we are lauded for this great accomplishment we have just completed, that we have the opportunity to go out into the world and make it a better place. We leave college with a great sense of pride and ambition. This can often lead a new hire to be overly confident in their knowledge and ability. This overconfidence can sometimes come across as arrogance, which can severely hinder a new engineer, as people will become less receptive to their ideas. Effective communication plays a vital part in an engineer's ability to be successful. A new engineer has to learn how to sell their ideas to both management and operations. Being able to do both effectively is more difficult than most perceive it to be. While mentoring, it is good to observe the mentee's interactions with others early, as it does not take long to make a poor first impression. A few years ago I had the opportunity to take a class related to understanding my own communication style and how to recognize the communication style of those around me. This class did a good job explaining how to tailor your communication to your audience. The key insight was that everyone values different information and presentation styles. This is especially helpful when presenting information to different levels of management.Lane is off to a great start professionally, on the job and off. She is an AIChE Young Professional member, Society of Biological Engineering member, and is vice chair of the East Tennessee Local Section.
What are your experiences with learning on the job?
Images: Portrait, Alanna Daley; Chemicals from Coal Facility, American Chemical Society (ACS); Eastman plant, Eastman Chemical
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